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Coca Cola and Marvel Team Up in Custom Packaging for Super Bowl

In the week leading up to Super Bowl 50, Marvel and Coca-Cola sent out a teaser to a variety of publications (See photo below). They said, “The big game is just the beginning and to follow Coke to watch the story unfold.” It seems the mini coke cans are another result of their commitment to custom packaging enabled by digital printing.

Packaging Plays Huge Role in New Ad

Soda sales have been on a decline for some time now, so many of the beverage manufacturers have shifted focus to growing segments like snacks, sports drinks, energy drinks, and more. Since Pepsi currently owns the halftime show, Coca-Cola needed to make a big splash in a little way. Instead of focusing on all their growing segments, Coke went back to their signature formula but in the form of a new package. We have all seen the mini-soda cans over the past 10 years, but they haven’t emphasized them. Coke realizes the health and nutrition trend is not going away, and it’s time to focus on the profitable mini-can.

It was interesting to see Coke and Marvel team up for this Super Bowl Ad. They grabbed a lot of people’s attention right before the end of the second quarter. The ad ends with an important tagline “Sometimes You Just Want a Little.” They are reportedly only making 30,000 cans available. Clues are hidden within the video to show consumers where to buy the cans online. It will be interesting to see how many Coke enthusiasts watch the ad to get the limited edition mini-cans.

Coca-Cola Loves Custom Digital Printing

As mentioned above, agencies and publications were sent a special six pack of Coke mini-cans with all of The Avengers. The mini-cans with their respective Marvel characters were created using Coke’s new favorite technology, custom digital printing. Custom digital printing is enabling their bottlers and marketers to work together to create personalized messages and campaigns through packaging. AB InBev is on the same trend, but who will be next to follow down this path? 2016 will be the year of digital printing to really breakout across multiple categories and brands. Watch out!

Package InSight + Digital Printing

We are eye tracking specialists by day, but a complete packaging innovation team by night. We have executed on a variety of innovation projects for Fortune 500 brands from brainstorming all the way through to prototype production. Our partnership with Clemson University enables our team with an incredible building full of world-class packaging machinery.